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From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge
Message-ID: <2400@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Sun, 12-Jul-87 17:10:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.2400
Posted: Sun Jul 12 17:10:25 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jul-87 04:19:48 EDT
References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> <121@cavell.UUCP> <4865@milano.UUCP>
Distribution: world
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 44
Keywords: knowledge belief truth certainty

In article <4865@milano.UUCP> wex@milano.UUCP writes:
>Perhaps this is alright for small cases, but in the real world, people
>knowingly hold inconsistent beliefs.  My favorite example is the one
>of the proofreader.  He has just finished proofreading a 350-page book
>and seen all the typos corrected.  If we ask him "Do you believe there
>is a typo on page <n> of this book?" for all 350 possible values of
><n>, he will say "no" each time.
>However, if we ask "Do you believe there is a typo somewhere in the
>350 pages of this book?" he will answer "yes."  Inconsistent?  Yes.
>So why does he hold this set of beliefs?
>
>The best answer I could give him was that his beliefs were not a
>matter of simple truth/falsity, but were a matter of degree.  Thus,
>the correct questions should have been "Do you believe that there is a
>one-in-three-hundred-fifty chance that there is a typo on page <n> of
>this book?"  To this, I claimed, he would have answered "yes."  This
>makes consistent his reply of "yes" to the final question.
>
>That is, given that he understands probability, and that there is a
>1/n chance of a typo per page in an n-page book, it is reasonable to
>say that there is a typo in the book.
>
>[Side note: he was not satisfied with this answer.  He remarked that
>he did not actively consider such probabilities in his answers and, in
>fact, he really had no grasp of what a one-in-three-hundred-fifty
>chance meant for proofreading.  His counter-claim was that my answer
>was not an explanation, simply a way to rationalize a set of beliefs
>that he, the belief-holder, considered inconsistent.]

[Speaking as a proofreader] -- I have no faith in the accuracy of the
book.  I do have faith in my ability as a proofreader.  Therefore,
because I have great faith in my ability, I assume that for any
given page it is more likely that there will be no error than
there is one.  However, knowing my ability as a proofreader, I admit
that i tend to make 1 mistake over every 350 pages.
-- 
(C) Copyright 1987 Laura Creighton - you may redistribute only if your 
    recipients may.

	``One must pay dearly for immortality:  one has to die several
	times while alive.'' -- Nietzsche

Laura Creighton	
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